Thesis Completion Checklist
Complete these tasks before submitting your thesis. The first error found in these items
will result in the thesis being returned to you for further editing, and you will have to
resubmit. The cycle will continue until you have corrected these basic elements your
own. Additional changes may result from the next tier of editing.
Font
____ The thesis must be typed in Courier New with a 12-point font. The font size must
be retained throughout the thesis except when a table requires a smaller font size.
Margins
____ The left margin must be 1 ½ inches. All other margins must be one inch except for
the first page of each chapter, which requires a two-inch margin on top.
Page Numbering
____ The title page and the signature page are preceded by a blank page, and these three
pages are not assigned numbers.
____ The latter two pages, however, are considered in the sequence of numbers. The
next page, “Acknowledgments,” is the first page to receive a printed number, the number
iii.
____ From the acknowledgments page up to, but not including, the first chapter or
introduction, all pages are assigned lower-case Roman numerals (i.e., i, ii, iii, iv, v).
____ All other pages in the document are assigned Arabic numerals (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).
____ The first page of each chapter, Table of Contents, List of Tables, List of Figures.
References, and appendices have numbers centered at the bottom of the page.
____ The remaining pages of each section are numbered in the upper right.
Preliminary Pages
____ Preliminary pages are those pages that come before the Introduction, Chapter I.
These pages, in order, are as follows:
____ the initial blank page,
____ the title page,
____ Acknowledgments,
____ Table of Contents,
____ List of Tables,
____ List of Figures, and
____ Abstract.
____ Check the format for the preliminary pages by going to Western’s home page.
Click on “Academics,” click on “Graduate Programs,” click on ”Current Students,”
select the pull-down box on ”Thesis/Project Guidelines,” and click on the “Paper-based
Guidelines” that will appear at the side.
Headings and Subheadings
Be careful that no subheading appears directly under another subheading or under
the chapter title without intervening script.
____ Bold, but do not italicize, all headings and subheadings.
____ The chapter is the first (level one) heading. It is written in all caps.
____ Level-two subheadings are centered, and the first letter of every important word is
capitalized. Do not use a level-two subheading unless you will have at least two leveltwo subheadings in the chapter.
____ Level-three subheadings appear at the left margin. They are underlined. The first
letter of every important word is capitalized. Do not use a level-three subheading unless
you will have at least two level-three subheadings under that level-two subheading.
____Level-four subheadings are indented the same length as the indentation at the
beginning of the paragraph. They are underlined, and a period appears at the end. The
first letters of important words are capitalized. The text begins on the same line as the
subheading. Do not use a level-four subheading unless you will have at least two levelfour subheadings under that level-three subheading.
Spacing
____ No more than one double space:
____ should precede or follow quotations,
____ should precede or follow headings or subheadings, or
____ should precede or follow a table or figure.
Citations
____ Each citation must be listed in the References.
____ There is no punctuation between the name of the author and the year of publication.
____ When more than two authors appear in the same citation, they are separated by
commas, including a comma before the “and” in a series of more than two. Ampersands
are not used.
____ When page references are used, those pages appear following a colon after the year
(e.g., Smith, Jones, and Wilson 2002:247-48).
____ Multiple citations are:
____ separated by semicolons and
____ appear in alphabetical order according to the first author listed.
References
____ References appear in alphabetical order.
____ When two references by the same author are listed, replace the author’s name in the
later one with an underline of seven spaces.
____ When two references by one author are written in the same year, put an “a” after the
first and a “b” after the second (e.g., 2007a and 2007b).
____ When an author’s name appears in conjunction with another author or authors, the
multiple authors (all of them) appear in sequence after the single author.
____ All print references must contain the city and state or country of publication unless
New York was the city of publication, in which case the state is omitted.
____ The words “Company,” “Incorporated,” Publishers,” “Books,” and “Press” are
omitted from the listing of the publisher. Exceptions are made to enhance clarity, as in
“Free Press” and “University of Wisconsin Press.”
____ Each citation listed in the References must have been used in the text.
Tables
_____ Tables appear as close as possible to the text that describes them.
_____ Some tables that will be of limited interest may appear as appendices. Refer to
these tables in the text (e.g. “See Appendix A.”).
_____ Because text must fill the pages and because it is desirable to put the whole table
on the same page, it may be necessary to move in some unrelated text before the table
can be presented.
_____The title of the table must appear exactly as it appears in the List of Tables.
Table of Contents
____ Avoid doing the Table of Contents until the end because page numbers and
headings change. Use the Table of Contents in your handbook as an example.
____ All headings in the Table of Contents must match the headings in your paper word
for word.
List of Tables
____The List of Tables, also, needs to be saved until the end because pages and titles will
change. Use the List of Tables in your handbook as an example.
____ Be sure that all table titles in the List of Tables match the titles in the paper word
for word.
Boxed Quotations
____ The entire boxed quotation is indented but is not placed within quotation marks. In
most cases the citation appears in parentheses after the last punctuation mark in the quote.
Page numbers must be included in the citation.
____ Boxed quotations are single spaced.
Proofreading
____ Read the entire thesis aloud to be sure that it makes sense. When possible, have a
friend read it, too.
____ Do a word check for “this” to ascertain that it has not been used as a pronoun.
____ Check to see that the word “percent” has been spelled out in the text. It is presented
as a symbol (%) when data are given in parentheses.
____ Numbers in the text should be spelled out if they are lower than 10 and written as
numerals if they are greater than nine. Numbers in parentheses are always written as
numerals.